Topdog/Underdog

Topdog/Underdog is a play by American playwright Suzan-Lori Parks which premiered in 2001 off-Broadway in New York City. The next year it opened on Broadway, at the Ambassador Theatre, where it played for several months. In 2002, Parks received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Outer Critics Circle Award for the play; it received other awards for the director and cast.

Plot

The play chronicles the adult lives of two African-American brothers, Lincoln and Booth, as they cope with women, work, poverty, gambling, racism, and their troubled upbringings. Their parents deserted the brothers when they were youngsters, and they became dependent on each other. Lincoln (in his late 30s), who had been an expert Three-card Monte player, lives with his younger brother Booth (in his early 30s), because his wife asked him to leave. Lincoln has taken a job as an Abraham Lincoln impersonator. Booth is trying to become a card sharp, but is not successful. He turns to shoplifting. Throughout the play Booth attempts to convince Lincoln (Link) to go back to three card Monte. Booth is also preoccupied with a woman named Grace who only likes him when he has money. On the other hand, Lincoln is more concerned with the fact that there could possibly be layoffs at the arcade in which he works at. Eventually Lincoln gets laid off and becomes distraught. At the end of the play Lincoln and Booth play three-card monte in which Lincoln allows Booth to initially win a few games. Once his confidence is high, Lincoln convinces Booth to put his $500 inheritance on the line and beats Booth in the game. An enraged Booth admits to killing Grace and then puts a gun to Lincoln's neck, shoots and kills him. He then sobs over Lincoln's dead body.

Production history

Topdog/Underdog opened off-Broadway at the Public Theater on July 26, 2001 and closed on September 2, 2001. Directed by George C. Wolfe, the play starred Don Cheadle (as Booth) and Jeffrey Wright (as Lincoln).^[1][2] The play opened on Broadway at the Ambassador Theatre on April 7, 2002 and closed on August 11, 2002. Cheadle was replaced by Mos Def; direction was again by George C. Wolfe.^[1] The play transferred to London at the Royal Court Theatre in 2003, with the same Broadway cast, and directed by Wolfe.^[1]

In September 2012, Topdog/Underdog was produced by the Two River Theater Company in Red Bank, New Jersey.^[3]

A 2011 production at the Shaw Festival in Canada starred Kevin Hanchard as Booth and Nigel Shawn Williams as Lincoln.^[4] This production had a second run at The Theatre Centre in Toronto later in the same year through Obsidian Theatre Company.^[5] Hanchard and Williams were both nominated for Outstanding Performance by a Male in a Principal Role – Play at the 2012 Dora Mavor Moore Awards; Williams won the award.^[6] Director Philip Akin also won the Dora for Outstanding Direction of a Play/Musical.

Background

Parks commented on the play: "I think the meaning of the play isn’t just confined to a man's experience... I think it's about what it means to be family and, in the biggest sense, the family of man, what it means to be connected with somebody else." She noted that the play speaks to "who the world thinks you’re going to be, and how you struggle with that."^[7]

Reception

Critic Ben Brantley of The New York Times wrote:

The play, first produced downtown at the Joseph Papp Public Theater last year, vibrates with the clamor of big ideas, audaciously and exuberantly expressed. Like Invisible Man Ralph Ellison's landmark novel of 1952, 'Topdog/Underdog' considers nothing less than the existential traps of being African-American and male in the United States, the masks that wear the men as well as vice versa. But don't think for a second that Ms. Parks is delivering a lecture or reciting a ponderous poem. Under the bravura direction of George C. Wolfe, a man who understands that showmanship and intellectual substance are not mutually exclusive, 'Topdog/Underdog' is a deeply theatrical experience.^[8]

The play won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The Pulitzer committee wrote of the play: "A darkly comic fable of brotherly love and family identity, Topdog/Underdog tells the story of Lincoln and Booth, two brothers whose names, given to them as a joke, foretell a lifetime of sibling rivalry and resentment. Haunted by their past, the brothers are forced to confront the shattering reality of their future."^[9]

Awards and nominations

• 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Drama^[10]
• 2002 Outer Critics Circle Award, Outstanding Director of a Play (Wolfe)
• 2001-2002 Obie Award, Performance (Wright) and Direction (Wolfe) (winners)
• 2001-2002 Outer Critics Circle Award, Outstanding John Glassner Award, Playwriting, Parks (winner)
• 2001-2002 Outer Critics Circle Award, Outstanding Special Achievement Award. Wright (winner)
• 2001-2002 Outer Critics Circle Award, Outstanding Special Achievement Award, Mos Def (winner)

• 2002 Lucille Lortel Award, Outstanding Actor, Jeffrey Wright (nominee)
• 2002 Drama Desk Award, Outstanding Play (nominee)
• 2002 Drama Desk Award, Outstanding Actor, Jeffrey Wright (nominee)
• 2002 Tony Award, Best Play (nominee)
• 2002 Tony Award, Best Actor in Play (Wright) (nominee)

References

• Parks, Suzan-Lori (2004). Topdog/Underdog. New York: Dramatists Play Service, Inc. p. 117 pp. ISBN 0-8222-1983-2. Retrieved 2008-08-07.

External links

• Topdog/Underdog at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
• Topdog/Underdog at the Internet Broadway Database
• NPR – Weekend
• John Simon in New York Magazine on Topdog/Underdog